Could Koggy's Kit be a little more coherent?

As I've mentioned in other topics Koggy has two main play patterns. His primary pattern (shell things from afar) and his fallback pattern (try to peel for himself at close range via high damage). His primary pattern is his focus and of late Riot has been pushing him further in that direction. The Q change was a pretty huge buff to his primary pattern with the obvious downside of making him even weaker to soft, mobile targets that try to duel/dive him (don't underestimate the power of a targeted 25 flat shred nuke against squishies).

There's a problem with that, however. Historically when Koggy's primary pattern is strong he ends up getting nerfed due to play in high level games. He's almost never nerfed because of how well he's doing down in solo queue. I've expressed in a few topics now that if Riot were to focus a bit more on his fallback pattern (reverted Q, artillery targeting on his R rather than delayed burst targeting) then he could get some meaningful improvements to his ability to function in Solo without pushing him over the top in high-level games.

As it stands right now Koggy's main competition is coming from Jinx (similar range, 100% range uptime, much stronger laning, more utility, better damage if she's hitting at least two targets with Fishbones) and Trist (similar range, 100% range uptime, much stronger laning, lower damage but HIGH safety). Before Jinx was released Koggy was distinguished from Trist by his ability to poke and his high damage. Buuuuut now we have Jinx who can also poke quite well with ZAP! while also boasting pretty solid long ranged AoE damage and a great IAS boost when folks get in close. It leaves Koggy's niche feeling far more tentative.

So to that end, I feel Riot really needs to better define Koggy's strength, to make his niche clear, powerful, and useful. Preferably in a way that doesn't cause him to be a nightmare in high-level games whilst leaving him 'decent, but not great' for us mere mortals. There are two main ways that I could see this getting pulled off. However, to get it to work would require sacrificing something. The something that gets abused by the pros.

His range buff from W.

Now, before you break out the pitch-forks hear me out.

That W range was one of Koggy's defining traits back when it kicked his range up to 750. It allowed him to kite champions from outside the range of gap closers. It was the highest auto-range aside from Twitch's Ult! But now that it's down to 710, now that Jinx is running around tossing rockets everywhere and giggling to herself it just isn't that compelling. Kicking it back up to 750 probably wouldn't be a good idea due to the aforementioned pro-abuse of long range auto attacks.

So instead?

Koggy's base range is increased to 550. The %HP damage on Koggy's W becomes a passive (possibly getting swapped over to a 3-Hit and proc style so he has to move in close to take advantage of it). The active now gives Koggy a HUGE auto-attack range boost for one attack. This would be an attack modifier akin to Dravin's Spinning Axe or Udyr's stance changes, it would NOT function as an auto-attack reset.

So what does this do? Laning phase up (reliable poke from safe range), late game down (can no longer auto things from 710 range). With the primary source of Pro-abuse gone, Koggy's kit could be safely buffed to actually function in a meaningful way for us mere-mortals. His identity as a champion could be better defined through modifications to his Innate that would be able to strengthen one of his two play patterns (artillery master or face-eating monster if you try to jump him).

Believe me, this is coming from a Koggy main as of his first free week, I don't suggest changes like this lightly. Of all the aspects of his kit that are fun, I would honestly say that his 710 attack range is the most out-dated. Back in the day before League of Mobility 750 range was a pretty great form of defense for Koggy, but in our modern era of League it just isn't cutting it anymore. Removing the range steroid would open up a TON of kit power without compromising the most integral parts of Koggy's identity (immobile tank-eating artillery platform).

If a Red felt like dropping in and sharing their thoughts on Koggy with us that would be super-great. But barring that, feel free to start throwing those rotten tomatoes.